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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26954980">Enthralled</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elysandra/pseuds/Elysandra'>Elysandra</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Spellbound [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sanctuary (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Fictober 2020, How it all began, Mind Control, considering the situation, kinda appropriate, no sexual mind control in this one, quite a bit of swearing though</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:48:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,422</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26954980</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elysandra/pseuds/Elysandra</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place about a month before Under His Spell and Spellbound and tells the tale of how our heroes came to find themselves in the situation they are currently in.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Helen Magnus/Nikola Tesla</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Spellbound [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1962724</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Fictober20</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Enthralled</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>~~~</p><p>“Alright.” Helen stretches, smiling, and sits up. “As much as I’d love a second round, Nikola, I really have to get up. I’ve got a meeting in, oh, 15 minutes.”</p><p>Pushing herself off the bed, she pads across the floor, naked, completely unabashed. He loves seeing her like this, but he hates having to watch her walk away. </p><p>“No,” he protests, half on principle, patting the still warm spot next to him. “Come back, Helen!”</p><p>And, much to his surprised delight, she does. Making a swift turn, she arrives back at the foot end of the bed, and crawls across the mussed covers until she’s kneeling right next to him, looking confused.</p><p>“What just happened?” she asks, staring at him in very endearing bewilderment.</p><p>“You came back,” Nikola points out the obvious, grinning. Propping his head up on one hand, he runs his other hand up her thigh, revelling in feeling the subtle play of her strong muscles as she balances kneeling on the soft surface. He hadn’t really expected her to give in to his ‘order’, but he’s more than willing to take what he can get.</p><p>“I did not mean to come back!” Helen protests, sadly slapping his hand away before he can get more than half-way up her thigh.</p><p>“Must be my irresistible magnetism.” He leers at her, his grin widening suggestively as he reaches for the inviting curve of her posterior instead. “And my masterful skills in bed. Which we are still in, by the way. So...”</p><p>“Stop it,” Helen hisses, slapping his hand away again and moving to get off said bed once more.</p><p>“No, stay!” Nikola calls out without thinking, and Helen freezes instantly. And, okay. He is kind of beginning to join her in a vague sense of bewilderment. Though Helen is definitely past ‘vague’ by now.</p><p>“What the bloody hell are you doing?” she hisses, turning to him with anger in her eyes. Anger and- and fear. What the hell?</p><p>“I’m not...” he stutters, unable to form any thought past that expression in her eyes. At him. At him!</p><p>“I can’t get off this bloody bed, Nikola!” she snarls, eyes wide. “And since <em>I’m</em> most definitely not doing this and we are alone in here...”</p><p>She looks gloriously threatening in all her mussed naked anger, but the sight doesn’t ignite his usual reaction. On the contrary. An ice cold hand seems to close around his heart, pressing harder and harder as he stares at her, at the growing panic behind her anger.</p><p>At the fear.</p><p>The thought alone takes his breath away, and not in a good way. But actually seeing it, seeing her-</p><p>She moves, tries to turn and slide off the bed but ends up sitting on the edge, legs folded to one side, her back tense, her shoulders moving visibly as she tries to control her breathing.</p><p>Control...</p><p>“Helen...”</p><p>His voice has her look back at him, and the movement bares her neck for just a moment, and things click.</p><p>Panic washes over him in a way that can only be compared to a bucket full of icy water dropped straight over his head, and he stares at her as she stares at him, trying to find words. Trying to force his suspicion out despite wishing with all his heart that he is wrong, that this is nonsense. Utter nonsense.</p><p>“<em>What?</em>” Helen growls when it takes him a moment too long, and he swallows, hard.</p><p>“I fed on you,” he whispers, staring at the point where her hair once more hides the marks he’d left behind. “And I remember wishing really, really hard that I could... make you mine.” He blushes at hearing those words out loud, because he had been thinking about marriage, which is embarrassing enough, but hearing it like this...</p><p>“You’ve fed on me before,” Helen points out, completely ignoring the second part, and he’s not quite sure whether to be hurt or relieved.</p><p>“Yes, but... I was having <em>really</em> intense, um, well, feelings,” he reiterates. <em>Because you almost didn’t make it back</em>, he adds silently but doesn’t say out loud. The realisation dawning in Helen’s eyes says she’s thinking the same thing, though.</p><p>“Do you think... I could have...” he tries, but can’t quite bring himself to say the actual words. Helen, as always, has no problem being blunt.</p><p>“Made me your thrall.”</p><p>“Yeah, that.”</p><p>They stare at each other, seconds passing by as their thoughts try to untangle themselves into coherent contributions. It takes a while, and Helen’s are quicker.</p><p>“That’s human lore,” she points out, sounding decidedly desperate even though she’s clearly trying to stay calm. Rational. “I’ve never actually seen it mentioned in <em>any</em> Vampiric source.”</p><p>“You’ve also never seen an explanation on how to drain a human. They still did.”</p><p>What if it’s so natural they didn’t <em>need</em> to talk about it? He doesn’t have to spell it out, the thought hangs heavy between them.</p><p>“But a concept of ‘thrall’ would have to come up at <em>some</em> point,” Helen protests, though it sounds rather feeble. The cold feeling of dread intensifies at her tone, makes breathing harder. He doesn’t need to breathe, he tells himself logically - because now it’s his turn to try to calm down, to stay rational. What he needs is to solve this.</p><p>“They speak about controlling humans all the time. We always assumed they meant by means of superior strength, or technology. But if this just came naturally to them...”</p><p>He can see the panic grow in Helen’s eyes, for once eclipsing her natural sense of curiosity. Maybe if she weren’t kneeling in bed, naked, utterly unable to get away...</p><p>“Calm <em>down</em>, Helen,” he half-hisses, feeling his own panic react in turn, threatening to slip out of his control. The way her face grows almost blank instantly, her body relaxing, does nothing to help with that.</p><p>“Fuck! I didn’t mean, I- Feel free to- to feel. Panic. No! I mean- ” sitting up in alarm, he waves his hands around helplessly as he tries to undo the damage. “Be- be- Be <em>you</em>, Helen!”</p><p>It’s a hell of a panicked Hail Mary, but it works.</p><p>“Bloody hell, Nikola! Watch your bloody mouth!”</p><p>She’s angry, and rightly so, and he runs his hand through his hair in utter distress as he tries to say something to make this right again.</p><p>“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,” is all he comes up with, and that’s bloody unhelpful and has Helen snort in derision and get off the bed in agitation to-</p><p>“You’re up!” he exclaims in surprise - and relief, and chuckles slightly hysterically as Helen turns around at his words to stare at the bed, as if checking if his words are actually true.</p><p>“Oh thank god,” he mutters when the chuckles have passed. “Oh thank god.” He’s rarely felt this relieved, this utterly relieved, and starts chuckling helplessly again when he can’t actually figure out what else to say but ‘Oh thank god’ to express his relief. ‘Be you.’ That phrase seems to be a general key to whatever bumbling chaos he created before, and thank god for that. Thank god for a solution, a way out. A reset. A-</p><p>“Bloody hell,” he hears Helen mutter, and finds her sinking down on her side of the bed, looking dazed but noticeably calmer as well. It seems he’s not the only one grateful to know they have an emergency phrase. Well, he probably can’t even begin to comprehend <em>her</em> level of relief. Silence grows as they revel in their most recent discovery. </p><p>“I guess I should postpone my meeting,” Helen finally says, rather matter-of-factly, and Nikola is quite grateful he manages to suppress the urge to chuckle this time.</p><p>“Might be best,” he agrees instead, shuffling over to sit next to her. Not touching, though. With the way she’d looked at him earlier, he isn’t sure how she’d react. And the idea of her pulling back from him, even as a reflex... “We should probably figure a few things out first.”</p><p>Helen nods, taking his hand and pressing it gently.</p><p>“That we should.”</p><p>She looks at him with a hesitant smile. It’s a small, rather crooked smile, but a smile nonetheless, and it tells him that part of her is already back to being optimistic and confident and curious, however small that part might be. And that’s just so reassuringly Helen that he can’t help but feel better as well.</p><p>They will figure things out. They will. It’s what they always do.</p><p>Right?</p><p>~~~</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Written for the fictober day 1 prompt "no, come back!"</p><p>And thank you to Kat for the beta! &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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